After an appeal from San Rafael Police Chief Diana Bishop, the City Council voted unanimously this week to approve the first reading of an ordinance banning loitering on small street medians.

If approved on second reading, the ordinance would ban loitering and lingering for more than two traffic signal cycles on medians that are 4 feet wide or less.

Bishop told the council the proposed law, similar to one successfully put in place in Windsor, was to protect the safety of people standing on the medians, as well as drivers who may be distracted by them.

“We’re looking at all of the raised medians in the city that are 4 feet in width or less and they’re inherently dangerous to be on for any longer of a period of time than for crossing the street,” Bishop told the council on Monday. She wants to avoid traffic being disrupted by the question, “why is that person standing there?”

“We’re just trying to make things as safe as we can,” Bishop added. “Especially since, I think you all know, we tend to have some problems between vehicles and pedestrians.”

$100 bill

Andrew Hening, the city’s homeless planning and outreach director, said a new program will be unveiled early next year to expand on the city’s already extensive and successful anti-panhandling efforts that, he said, most residents don’t know are happening.

Those include a “Put Your Change to Work” program, where people deposit loose change in meters downtown to finance a city Downtown Streets Team that does one-on-one outreach to the homeless population. Since the launch in September 2016, about $3,000 in change has been collected, and another $40,000 has been contributed by corporate sponsors, he said.

The new program would further allow people to contribute to area homeless people through a network of nonprofit partners, rather than directly through panhandling.

The idea is to “give inside and not on the street,” he said. “Unfortunately, people continue to panhandle because people continue to give them money.”

He said a homeless person told him someone handed him a $100 bill out of a car window at Third and Irwin streets. Another man standing at a freeway onramp for the Central San Rafael exit of Highway 101 told Hening he was originally homeless in Sacramento, but now travels up and down the West Coast to panhandle — especially in San Rafael, which is known in homeless circles as “the bank,” Hening said. “If he needs money, he said he just comes to San Rafael.”

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Helpful programs

Hening said panhandlers don’t usually use the money for the purpose it’s meant for, such as housing and food. The city’s other programs are designed to help provide daily needs for homeless people. In addition to the “Put Your Change to Work” parking meters, the city has already set up or is in the process of setting up mobile showers, a Housing Outreach Team, and a coordinated entry system that prioritizes the chronic, disturbed and highly vulnerable homeless people that generate many of the police calls and complaints so they could get special attention for housing and services.

“Unfortunately, for a lot of people, the single interaction they have on this (homeless) issue is panhandling, and they don’t see all the good things that are being done,” Hening said. “We don’t want to discourage people from giving, we just want them to give” in a way so that people who are homeless can get help and services.

“We’ve put a lot of effort into transforming the system of (homeless) care in Marin over the last two years,” Hening added. “When you think of all the people driving by in traffic and the only interaction they have is people panhandling, people think nothing’s getting done.”

That perception generates “a lot of frustration about that in the city and with our providers,” he said.

As to the median ordinance, only one resident commented before the council took action.

Jonathan Frieman, a social justice activist in the city, said he didn’t know why the ordinance was needed.

“Is there any proof that medians are dangerous? Any stats?” he said. “None are in the proposed ordinance.

“Complaints are all we have,” Frieman added, “so at least we can intuit that rich white people just don’t like seeing the face of poverty.”

He said bicycles also come close to cars and can be a safety hazard.

“If you’re gonna outlaw people on medians because they’re too close to the cars, you ought to outlaw us people who ride bikes in the streets,” he said.